FCPS Early Release Mondays

[Anonymous]

Besides this training what other training is taking up the teacher workdays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s so funny and telling that every district in the state had to suddenly accommodate for this with no option not to to but the only district with 40 pages of aggrieved complaining is FCPS

Because other districts behaved professionally, engaged the parents, and didn’t add seven early release days.

What’s funny is that only Fairfax can’t manage to meet this low standard despite having the most money.

Well, one of those counties already has early release days built into their calendar and they’re just using those. So it’s not really that different.

I’m pretty sure when you’re referring to engaging the parents you’re referring to one county, not all the surrounding counties. Plus if you read the email they are asking for parent input via the steering committee.

Are you basing your whole argument on how two of the other 40 counties?

Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that they’re unprofessional.

What different is that parents were informed when the calendar came out, when they we making their decisions about aftercare and other childcare. FCPS waited until parents would already be behind the curve in making their September plans.

Here’s what “professional” looks like. And it’s not my opinion, it’s another area superintendent:

“After carefully reviewing the feedback and recognizing that the adjusted arrival schedule is not an ideal option for the majority of the families we heard from, we are reconsidering our approach,” Spence wrote Friday in a letter to families. “We understand the importance of minimizing disruption to our students’ and families’ routines while still providing the necessary time for teachers to engage in professional development.”

That’s how you act like you’re in something together. You give yourself time to solicit input and adjust. Fairfax is the wealthiest and best-resourced district by far and they need to act like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think doing the training Monday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week is a great solution. MKe those days k-12 teacher workdays/training days, no need to close early on Mondags.

Those 3 days still aren’t enough to complete the entire training, and they’ll run into issues with staff that already has travel plans for that Wednesday, since it’s currently a holiday.

Clearly, changing the expected instructional schedule is not an issue with FCPS so this should be no biggie. If its ok to close early unexpectedly a whole bunch of days, switching a day off to a work day months from now shouldn't be an issue.

The difference is the current plan doesn’t change the employee calendar. Employees already planned on working those days. That’s not the case for the day before Thanksgiving.

Well, parents already planned on working all of these Monday afternoons. So I guess there will need to be some shared pain. Since we’re in this “together” right?

FCPS is the employer. They need to make time to provide their employees with this training. They made a decision. FCPS is not your employer.

Correct— FCPS is a service provider. And they are changing the terms of those services on the backs of one group (parents) to the benefit of another group (teachers/staff) while shortchanging a third group (students).

The only way in which they are held responsible for this decision is if voters hold their school board representatives accountable in November. Which should be easy since it will be after two disastrous early-releases are already behind us. I am writing my board members to say I will be eagerly seeking his proposals to keep children in the classroom.

Service providers change their terms and conditions ALL time without asking their customers.

And when their customers object, they are held responsible. Loudoun’s entire board got voted out. Why do you think they were so careful about parent engagement when they were confronted with the exact same mandate Fairfax is flailing with.

Then we’ll see if this school board gets voted out because of it. And who said FCPS is flailing…the parents maybe, but not the school district.

Rolling out a “plan” with no details on the alleged “enrichment” or even who might qualify for it, on the last week of school, when all the neighboring counties handled it months ago with professionalism and parent engagement is absolutely flailing.

Months ago? That’s an exaggeration for sure.

I’m afraid not. VLA was released in March. London went through proposals (including late start and early release) in April and May before landing on four days off. Board members engaged with the community. It’s possible to behave professionally in these cases.

So one example….

No it was released in March for the entire state. All 40 counties. Fairfax had the same the months in which to propose a viable solution that everyone else had.

Those three months could have landed on this “early release but you can stay in school” solution they’ve chosen, but could have had specific plans for that “enrichment” option they’re talking about. Instead they send everyone into the summer with uncertainty about September. That is unprofessional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think doing the training Monday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week is a great solution. MKe those days k-12 teacher workdays/training days, no need to close early on Mondags.

Those 3 days still aren’t enough to complete the entire training, and they’ll run into issues with staff that already has travel plans for that Wednesday, since it’s currently a holiday.

Clearly, changing the expected instructional schedule is not an issue with FCPS so this should be no biggie. If its ok to close early unexpectedly a whole bunch of days, switching a day off to a work day months from now shouldn't be an issue.

The difference is the current plan doesn’t change the employee calendar. Employees already planned on working those days. That’s not the case for the day before Thanksgiving.

Well, parents already planned on working all of these Monday afternoons. So I guess there will need to be some shared pain. Since we’re in this “together” right?

FCPS is the employer. They need to make time to provide their employees with this training. They made a decision. FCPS is not your employer.

Correct— FCPS is a service provider. And they are changing the terms of those services on the backs of one group (parents) to the benefit of another group (teachers/staff) while shortchanging a third group (students).

The only way in which they are held responsible for this decision is if voters hold their school board representatives accountable in November. Which should be easy since it will be after two disastrous early-releases are already behind us. I am writing my board members to say I will be eagerly seeking his proposals to keep children in the classroom.

Service providers change their terms and conditions ALL time without asking their customers.

And when their customers object, they are held responsible. Loudoun’s entire board got voted out. Why do you think they were so careful about parent engagement when they were confronted with the exact same mandate Fairfax is flailing with.

Then we’ll see if this school board gets voted out because of it. And who said FCPS is flailing…the parents maybe, but not the school district.

I thought the same thing. I'm a teacher and I think they could fit the training in some of the already scheduled SP or SD days, but they made a decision and sent out the notice.

Another teacher. I think most ES would be fine with using SD and SP days for this. But only if this was it. Get rid of everything else not required snd focus on this for ES. Also make sure CLTS are limited to 1 so teachers get required planning time. Simple solution. I don’t like ER plan. Too disruptive to kids.

Elementary teachers would love to go down to one CLT a week, but that has been a request that FCPS has not been willing to compromise. We would all love it….but it is highly unlikely.

At the beginning of the SY Dr Reid told principals they needed to adhere to the policy as written, which means ES are supposed to have a minimum of 240 minutes of unencumbered teacher directed planning time a week. Of course many principals ignored that or tried to work around it unless people at the school pushed them to change it. Perhaps this is something that can be contractual through collective bargaining.

The problem is that the 2 CLT’s are supposed to also leave time for those 240 hours because we are supposed to count the 20 minutes at the beginning of the day and the 10 minutes at the end as planning time. One of the big issues, of course, is that we don’t get the 10 minutes at the end of the day because children are still being dismissed (and often beyond). We also get that time taken away for the other ad-hoc meetings that arise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Besides this training what other training is taking up the teacher workdays?

I understand the work days are for work— grading, planning, etc. those shouldn’t be impacted. The question is what is taking place on the other days set aside for staff development and whether some of that time could have gone to this requirement, in addition to adding some more rational days off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s so funny and telling that every district in the state had to suddenly accommodate for this with no option not to to but the only district with 40 pages of aggrieved complaining is FCPS

Because other districts behaved professionally, engaged the parents, and didn’t add seven early release days.

What’s funny is that only Fairfax can’t manage to meet this low standard despite having the most money.

Well, one of those counties already has early release days built into their calendar and they’re just using those. So it’s not really that different.

I’m pretty sure when you’re referring to engaging the parents you’re referring to one county, not all the surrounding counties. Plus if you read the email they are asking for parent input via the steering committee.

Are you basing your whole argument on how two of the other 40 counties?

Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that they’re unprofessional.

What different is that parents were informed when the calendar came out, when they we making their decisions about aftercare and other childcare. FCPS waited until parents would already be behind the curve in making their September plans.

Here’s what “professional” looks like. And it’s not my opinion, it’s another area superintendent:

“After carefully reviewing the feedback and recognizing that the adjusted arrival schedule is not an ideal option for the majority of the families we heard from, we are reconsidering our approach,” Spence wrote Friday in a letter to families. “We understand the importance of minimizing disruption to our students’ and families’ routines while still providing the necessary time for teachers to engage in professional development.”

That’s how you act like you’re in something together. You give yourself time to solicit input and adjust. Fairfax is the wealthiest and best-resourced district by far and they need to act like it.

Great, so you have a few options in front of you:
- Continue to complain on DCUM
- Stop complaining, make plans, and enjoy your summer
- Do nothing, and run around in September the week before
- Move to Loudoun, as the model of Uber-professionalism
- Homeschool
- Pioneer in making changes to the public education industry

Let us know which one you go with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Besides this training what other training is taking up the teacher workdays?

I understand the work days are for work— grading, planning, etc. those shouldn’t be impacted. The question is what is taking place on the other days set aside for staff development and whether some of that time could have gone to this requirement, in addition to adding some more rational days off.

- There are the beginning of the year trainings that are also required by the state. (8 hours or so).
- There is more required trainings that that come out every quarter. Those come out quarterly, by the way to eliminate the number of trainings that we have to take at the beginning of the year. (1.5-2 hours).
- There is training coming out regarding the new math standards.
- There is ongoing phonics/reading training beyond this initiative.
- I’m confident they’ll be some type of equity training (maybe…)

[Anonymous]

So it sounds like SACC is open for all before and after school students? That sounds like a win. And of course the afterschool programs outside of FCPS will follow suit as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s so funny and telling that every district in the state had to suddenly accommodate for this with no option not to to but the only district with 40 pages of aggrieved complaining is FCPS

Because other districts behaved professionally, engaged the parents, and didn’t add seven early release days.

What’s funny is that only Fairfax can’t manage to meet this low standard despite having the most money.

Well, one of those counties already has early release days built into their calendar and they’re just using those. So it’s not really that different.

I’m pretty sure when you’re referring to engaging the parents you’re referring to one county, not all the surrounding counties. Plus if you read the email they are asking for parent input via the steering committee.

Are you basing your whole argument on how two of the other 40 counties?

Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that they’re unprofessional.

What different is that parents were informed when the calendar came out, when they we making their decisions about aftercare and other childcare. FCPS waited until parents would already be behind the curve in making their September plans.

Here’s what “professional” looks like. And it’s not my opinion, it’s another area superintendent:

“After carefully reviewing the feedback and recognizing that the adjusted arrival schedule is not an ideal option for the majority of the families we heard from, we are reconsidering our approach,” Spence wrote Friday in a letter to families. “We understand the importance of minimizing disruption to our students’ and families’ routines while still providing the necessary time for teachers to engage in professional development.”

That’s how you act like you’re in something together. You give yourself time to solicit input and adjust. Fairfax is the wealthiest and best-resourced district by far and they need to act like it.

Great, so you have a few options in front of you:
- Continue to complain on DCUM
- Stop complaining, make plans, and enjoy your summer
- Do nothing, and run around in September the week before
- Move to Loudoun, as the model of Uber-professionalism
- Homeschool
- Pioneer in making changes to the public education industry

Let us know which one you go with.

I truly hope you’re not a teacher with a list like that which doesn’t include:

- engage your elected officials (basic civics)

And

- send your children to private school (basic economics)

Similarly you seem to have missed the very basic option to both complain on DCUM and make plans at the same time. Why do you think those two are mutually exclusive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s so funny and telling that every district in the state had to suddenly accommodate for this with no option not to to but the only district with 40 pages of aggrieved complaining is FCPS

Because other districts behaved professionally, engaged the parents, and didn’t add seven early release days.

What’s funny is that only Fairfax can’t manage to meet this low standard despite having the most money.

Well, one of those counties already has early release days built into their calendar and they’re just using those. So it’s not really that different.

I’m pretty sure when you’re referring to engaging the parents you’re referring to one county, not all the surrounding counties. Plus if you read the email they are asking for parent input via the steering committee.

Are you basing your whole argument on how two of the other 40 counties?

Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean that they’re unprofessional.

What different is that parents were informed when the calendar came out, when they we making their decisions about aftercare and other childcare. FCPS waited until parents would already be behind the curve in making their September plans.

Here’s what “professional” looks like. And it’s not my opinion, it’s another area superintendent:

“After carefully reviewing the feedback and recognizing that the adjusted arrival schedule is not an ideal option for the majority of the families we heard from, we are reconsidering our approach,” Spence wrote Friday in a letter to families. “We understand the importance of minimizing disruption to our students’ and families’ routines while still providing the necessary time for teachers to engage in professional development.”

That’s how you act like you’re in something together. You give yourself time to solicit input and adjust. Fairfax is the wealthiest and best-resourced district by far and they need to act like it.

Great, so you have a few options in front of you:
- Continue to complain on DCUM
- Stop complaining, make plans, and enjoy your summer
- Do nothing, and run around in September the week before
- Move to Loudoun, as the model of Uber-professionalism
- Homeschool
- Pioneer in making changes to the public education industry

Let us know which one you go with.

I truly hope you’re not a teacher with a list like that which doesn’t include:

- engage your elected officials (basic civics)

And

- send your children to private school (basic economics)

Similarly you seem to have missed the very basic option to both complain on DCUM and make plans at the same time. Why do you think those two are mutually exclusive?

Yay- you’ve decided. Cool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Besides this training what other training is taking up the teacher workdays?

I understand the work days are for work— grading, planning, etc. those shouldn’t be impacted. The question is what is taking place on the other days set aside for staff development and whether some of that time could have gone to this requirement, in addition to adding some more rational days off.

- There are the beginning of the year trainings that are also required by the state. (8 hours or so).
- There is more required trainings that that come out every quarter. Those come out quarterly, by the way to eliminate the number of trainings that we have to take at the beginning of the year. (1.5-2 hours).
- There is training coming out regarding the new math standards.
- There is ongoing phonics/reading training beyond this initiative.
- I’m confident they’ll be some type of equity training (maybe…)

they’ll sometimes give us part of the day for planning because the county knows that they are FULLY out of compliance when it comes to elementary planning time

[Anonymous]

Why did FCPS decide to do all these disruptive early releases (with double bus runs?!?) rather than just close for full day training? What was the rationale?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Besides this training what other training is taking up the teacher workdays?

I understand the work days are for work— grading, planning, etc. those shouldn’t be impacted. The question is what is taking place on the other days set aside for staff development and whether some of that time could have gone to this requirement, in addition to adding some more rational days off.

It’s other training. We have to have continuing education hours to renew our teaching licensure so we have to complete a minimum number of CE hours each year and log those so we meet the threshold. There’s already ungodly hours of required training for restraint and inclusion, equity, gender expansive students, school and workplace safety, emergency response training, diabetes and allergy training, CPR training, bloodborne pathogens, on and on . I don’t think most people conceptualize or understand how much mandated training there ALREADY is and now this additional 32 hours of training.

This year there’s also new standards being implemented so we’ve already been told that a good chunk of PD when we go back in August is learning the new standards that we have to implement starting day 1. Depending on which grade levels and content you teach, this happens every few years and requires MORE development time and meetings and curriculum writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think doing the training Monday-Wednesday of Thanksgiving week is a great solution. MKe those days k-12 teacher workdays/training days, no need to close early on Mondags.

Those 3 days still aren’t enough to complete the entire training, and they’ll run into issues with staff that already has travel plans for that Wednesday, since it’s currently a holiday.

Clearly, changing the expected instructional schedule is not an issue with FCPS so this should be no biggie. If its ok to close early unexpectedly a whole bunch of days, switching a day off to a work day months from now shouldn't be an issue.

The difference is the current plan doesn’t change the employee calendar. Employees already planned on working those days. That’s not the case for the day before Thanksgiving.

Well, parents already planned on working all of these Monday afternoons. So I guess there will need to be some shared pain. Since we’re in this “together” right?

FCPS is the employer. They need to make time to provide their employees with this training. They made a decision. FCPS is not your employer.

Correct— FCPS is a service provider. And they are changing the terms of those services on the backs of one group (parents) to the benefit of another group (teachers/staff) while shortchanging a third group (students).

The only way in which they are held responsible for this decision is if voters hold their school board representatives accountable in November. Which should be easy since it will be after two disastrous early-releases are already behind us. I am writing my board members to say I will be eagerly seeking his proposals to keep children in the classroom.

Service providers change their terms and conditions ALL time without asking their customers.

And when their customers object, they are held responsible. Loudoun’s entire board got voted out. Why do you think they were so careful about parent engagement when they were confronted with the exact same mandate Fairfax is flailing with.

Then we’ll see if this school board gets voted out because of it. And who said FCPS is flailing…the parents maybe, but not the school district.

I thought the same thing. I'm a teacher and I think they could fit the training in some of the already scheduled SP or SD days, but they made a decision and sent out the notice.

Another teacher. I think most ES would be fine with using SD and SP days for this. But only if this was it. Get rid of everything else not required snd focus on this for ES. Also make sure CLTS are limited to 1 so teachers get required planning time. Simple solution. I don’t like ER plan. Too disruptive to kids.

Elementary teachers would love to go down to one CLT a week, but that has been a request that FCPS has not been willing to compromise. We would all love it….but it is highly unlikely.

At the beginning of the SY Dr Reid told principals they needed to adhere to the policy as written, which means ES are supposed to have a minimum of 240 minutes of unencumbered teacher directed planning time a week. Of course many principals ignored that or tried to work around it unless people at the school pushed them to change it. Perhaps this is something that can be contractual through collective bargaining.

The problem is that the 2 CLT’s are supposed to also leave time for those 240 hours because we are supposed to count the 20 minutes at the beginning of the day and the 10 minutes at the end as planning time. One of the big issues, of course, is that we don’t get the 10 minutes at the end of the day because children are still being dismissed (and often beyond). We also get that time taken away for the other ad-hoc meetings that arise.

You don’t have to have 2 CLTs. It’s a minimum of 60 minutes. Yes, you can have 2 if you still have the 240. They are not supposed to count the time before and after school. Who told you that? The planning time has to be during the instructional day. Read the policy:

ELEMENTARY TEACHING ASSIGNMENTS (Grades K-6)
Elementary teachers engaged in the responsibilities associated with their position on a full- time basis shall be allowed 300 minutes of planning time per week or 600 minutes over a 2-week period. Within that time, a minimum of 60 minutes of collaborative planning time and 240 minutes of teacher-directed planning times per week or 120 minutes of collaborative planning time and 480 minutes of teacher-directed planning times over a 2- week period will be provided.
Classroom planning time is provided during art, physical education, music, and/or other instructional programming. Other certified personnel without direct classroom responsibilities may also be assigned in a manner that provides planning time. Such assignments may only exceed 10 hours per week per position with the approval of the region assistant superintendent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Besides this training what other training is taking up the teacher workdays?

I understand the work days are for work— grading, planning, etc. those shouldn’t be impacted. The question is what is taking place on the other days set aside for staff development and whether some of that time could have gone to this requirement, in addition to adding some more rational days off.

It’s other training. We have to have continuing education hours to renew our teaching licensure so we have to complete a minimum number of CE hours each year and log those so we meet the threshold. There’s already ungodly hours of required training for restraint and inclusion, equity, gender expansive students, school and workplace safety, emergency response training, diabetes and allergy training, CPR training, bloodborne pathogens, on and on . I don’t think most people conceptualize or understand how much mandated training there ALREADY is and now this additional 32 hours of training.

This year there’s also new standards being implemented so we’ve already been told that a good chunk of PD when we go back in August is learning the new standards that we have to implement starting day 1. Depending on which grade levels and content you teach, this happens every few years and requires MORE development time and meetings and curriculum writing.

If you don’t mind my asking, how much of this is State mandated? License training, got it, new math curriculum, got it, but how much of the rest of it is mandated by the county vs the state? Because that’s where the potential for trade-off theoretically exists.